In the Godfather Garden: The Long Life and Times of Richie "the Boot" Boiardo

CHapter 6. The Club Fremont Incident

85 2 Pasquale “Smudgy” Antonelli entered the Club Fremont on Friday, September 23, 1960, at ten o’clock in the morning. He was summoned by Tony Boy Boiardo, who used the Fremont for meetings and as a clearinghouse for his numbers operations.1 The Fremont was basically a bar and grill, open for lunch, never for breakfast. A morning meeting meant Tony Boy wanted privacy, for an important matter. Smudgy arrived at the Fremont unarmed, but he wasn’t taking any chances; his wife accompanied him. She carried a pistol in her pocketbook. The general consensus among mobsters was that Smudgy, a freelance numbers runner, was a punk and a thief and could not be trusted. He was known for being a hothead and instigating violent holdups; just two years earlier he had robbed a lumber company, pistol whipping one of the employees and shooting off the ear of another.2 Informants who spoke to the FBI after the Club Fremont incident, however, stumbled over one c h a p t e r 6 THE CLUB FREMONT INCIDENT There he encountered frightened troops, men who did not know what to do. He shouted, “You’re contemptible! Chased by a single cavalier! Why don’t you burrow through the mud rather than let yourselves be seen? Throw down your weapons! Go home! Sleep! You don’t know what shame—scandal—means!” —Matteo Maria Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, 102 86 In the Godfather Garden another with conflicting stories about his relationship to Tony Boy. One said Smudgy had set up a rival bookmaking and loan-sharking business in Tony Boy’s territory without permission and was about to get run out of town by the Boiardo mob. Another squealed that Smudgy owed Tony Boy money and was going to pay a penalty.Yet another informant claimed that Smudgy had been robbing Tony Boy’s runners and was marked for a rub-out by the Boiardo mob. Yet another was convinced Smudgy wasn’t robbing the Boiardos but he knew who was and Tony Boy just wanted to rough him up and grill him on the identity of the culprit. Finally, perhaps the most likely story: Smudgy was given a contract to kill the person or persons responsible for the stickups but he reneged, and when he showed up at the Fremont he was “belittled and slapped around a bit.” Meanwhile, a panel truck was parked behind the tavern with three bags containing cement and lye to dispose of Smudgy’s supposed victims.3 Smudgy’s status was based on a muddle of insinuations and half-truths, but it was very clear what he represented—a challenge to Tony Boy’s authority . According to FBI documents, the Boot began to turn over his rackets to his son around 1958. Tony Boy ran a decent lottery, offering same-night service on payouts to winners, but numbers games in other counties were stealing his business by raising the odds, paying 600-to-1 compared with Tony Boy’s lowball 500-to-1 odds.He also sold“cut numbers,”or“cut cards,” more popular combinations like 777 that have reduced payoffs, for as much as 20 percent less in order to avoid the risk of a run on his lottery when those numbers were hit. And he was doing business with smaller numbers games, which he permitted in his territory by being the bank that laid the“edge off” large bets that they couldn’t cover. Unfortunately, this combination led to his bank’s being overwhelmed by winning numbers, and he had to borrow money from the Boot to pay them off.4 A more pressing concern: robberies. A gang of Puerto Ricans held up three of Tony Boy’s lottery drops; one of the victims was his biggest bookmaker in the North Ward. Stickups created headaches and big financial losses for Tony Boy, and they looked bad. Tony Boy wasn’t protecting his The Club Fremont Incident 87 turf and his people. He ignored his bread and butter—the local rackets— and instead took trips to Nevada, Florida, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and Havana with the Hollywood actor George Raft, overseeing the Boot’s growing portfolio of investments in various hotels, casinos, and other businesses in Las Vegas, Miami, Hallandale, and on the islands, including the lucrative Capri Hotel and Casino. Around this time a Newark Evening News photographer snapped a photo of...